In early August, the government announced the police officer pay increase for 2025/26 as 4.2%, applicable to all ranks between PC to Chief Superintendent. This followed months of negotiations and proposals from various stakeholders into the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB).
The PRRB put forward the proposal of 4.2%, along with other pay improvements, which the government have implemented in full. In this blog, I’ll cover the key details on confirmed pay, including:
- Summary of what was proposed by the PRRB and implemented by the Home Office
- How this translates into the £ salaries officers will now get for the coming year
- How the award differs by rank
- What’s the gap between pay and inflation for recent years
- What this means for Northern Ireland officers
- How this compares against other public sector pay awards
- Whether it’s truly ‘fully funded’ (it’s not) and the implications for force finances
- Latest on the Police Scotland pay negotiations for 2025/26
I’ve now reported on the last few years of salary increases and their apparent ‘fairness’ if you want the longer-term context of police officer pay. But for now, let’s get down to business on the 2025/26 situation…
4.2% Pay Increase for All Police Ranks up to Chief Superintendent
I blogged last month on the 2026 police pay negotiations and how the PRRB were considering all the evidence and pitches for % pay increases from various stakeholders. These ranged from 3.8% by the NPCC up to 21% requested by the Police Federation.
The PRRB soon after published their recommendations for England and Wales police officer pay in their 11th, 150+ page report to the Home Secretary. The headline figure reported by police officer groups, the government and media alike was the 4.2% increase in pay for all salary points from Police Constable to Chief Superintendent, with effect from 1 September 2025.
The PRRB added in some additional recommendations to this, all of which have now been ratified by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Here’s a summary of their six key recommendations, covering salary, allowances, and the London Weighting:
The PFEW reacted to the 4.2% rise with disdain, counting the salary change in Big Macs…
“Today’s pay award of 4.2% barely treads water, with inflation currently at 4.1%… A pay rise worth the price of a Big Mac per shift won’t stop record levels of resignations, record mental health absences, or the record number of assaults on officers.” – Brian Booth, Deputy National Chair
As I’ve pointed out before, a flat rate increase across all ranks is a regressive approach. It does nothing to address the main concerns raised by officers and argued by the Federation about the struggle during the first few years after joining while officers’ pay remains below the national average salary. It merely increases the £££s gap between the junior and senior ranks.
Here’s what the 4.2% means in £££s for each rank (Note: A Big Mac currently costs £5.29!). All after the ‘PC New Joiner’ refer to the top of their scale…
- PC New Joiner: + £1,257 (now £31,164)
- PC Top of Scale: + £2,025 (now £50,256)
- Sergeant: + £2,265 (now £56,208)
- Inspector: + £2,781 (now £68,982)
- Chief Inspector: + £2,948 (now £73,148)
- Superintendent: + £3,989 (now £99,015)
- Chief Superintendent: + £4,668 (now £115,785)
New 2025/26 Pay Scales Following the Increase
Now the 4.2% is confirmed, the new police pay bands for 2025/26 are set and take effect from the 1st September. Officers progress a pay point each year until they reach the top of the band.
The top of Constable band for the first time now exceeds the £50k mark, achievable after six years in service. But those choosing to go for promotion to Sergeant need not wait six years, and the pay here starts at £53.6k and rises to £56.2k in just two years. Inspector salaries range from £63.8k – £69.0k and the move to Chief Inspector now starts on over £70k. For the Met Police and City of London, the London Weighting and Allowances bring these up further as per the PRRB report (snapshot below).
Focusing on the rank of Constable, below is how the salary scale has compared to the UK average earnings over the past decade. Because officers move up this scale each year from their joining date, I show the ‘real salary journey’ of the officers who joined in 2017/18, as they move up the salary band. Assuming this trend of band increases continues, an officer joining on £31k from September can expect their salary to increase to around £60k in six years’ time.
The PRRB report that over half of all England and Wales police officers are at the top of their pay band. So other than promotion, second jobs, or other ways to boost salary, this 4.2% will be their only pay increase for the year.
As always, you’ll find all the latest UK police salary information on my dedicated webpage, which I’ll also update when Police Scotland and PSNI’s 2026 salary scales are confirmed.
Police Pay Rises vs Inflation: A Recent History
Pay versus inflation is an important issue. The spending power of most of the UK working population’s earnings has deteriorated in recent decades, and policing is no different. This is such an important issue to officers, the PRRB even notes in its evidence-gathering visits to forces:
“The most frequently expressed view on the pay uplift for 2025/26 was that it should at least match inflation.”
Officers already at the top of their pay scale, who no longer progressing through the annual increments received at the rank, have seen the spending power of their salary deteriorate significantly. Here’s how pay awards to the police pay scale have kept pace (or not) with CPI inflation in recent years:
The big dive here came in 2022/23, highlighted in the following simple chart which shows the difference between pay rises and CPI inflation each year:
The Police Federation have kept a longer-term track on police pay awards compared to inflation. The Federation stated in their evidence to the PRRB that the police officer salary scale has fallen 21% behind CPIH inflation (the ‘H’ includes housing costs) since 2010. This gap mostly arose from the pay freezes during the ‘austerity’ years, particularly between 2010-2015.
For context against the wider England and Wales economy, the PRRB helpfully shows the long term earnings of police officers (constable and sergeant ranks) against other occupations. Officers are now on a par with other ‘Professional Occupations’ and remain higher than that of the ‘Whole Economy’.
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Police Pay Award vs Other Sectors
Incomes Data Research have collated the pay awards for policing and other public sector bodies. The awards in 2025 to date ranged between 3.3% – 4.5%, putting policing’s 4.2% in context. Additionally, the PRRB report that pay awards in the three months to April 2025 (predominantly in the private sector) ranged from 3.0% to 3.8%.
The Police Staff pay award hasn’t yet been agreed, negotiations are ensuing. This however tends to closely follow that for officers in recent years, so we can expect this to be finalised around the 4% mark.
Forces Budgets Squeezed Further to Fund the Rise…
In its press release announcing the 4.2% pay rise, the government stated it “will be supported by £120 million from the Home Office to help protect police force budgets.” While £120 million sounds like a lot and the announcement may sound fully-funded to those not versed in political speak. However, this ‘help’ and ‘support’ is just a small portion of the extra costs to forces, when police officer pay accounts for 61% of total force spend according to the NPCC.
The APCC allude to this shortfall in their formal response to the pay award. They don’t put a figure on it, but highlight the shortfall noting that…
“…this uplift exceeds the salary provisions budgeted by the majority of police forces. While the additional £120 million announced by the Home Office is a step in the right direction, it does not fully account for the wider financial impact on forces, including overtime, pensions and broader pay-related costs.”
So how much does it really account for and what will be the ‘wider financial impact’ to forces?
Well, let’s say on average this pay award adds £2,000 to the annual basic salary of each of the 146,000 officers in England and Wales. That’s nearly £300 million in salary alone. Add in the associated pension and on-cost increases, along with the added overtime and other costs to force finances alluded to by the APCC, the figure will be around £400 million to fully cover it.
With the government declaring they’ll fund £120 million, less than a third of the total cost to forces of this pay increase, it means big savings must be made elsewhere to afford this. And these will be bigger savings than previously planned for. The NPCC for example submitted evidence to the pay review body arguing for a lower pay rise, declaring that even “a 2% award would still have implications for forces in terms of service delivery.”
This means as usual PCCs will be squeezing the precepts and using more reserves, while Chief Officers will be deciding on what officer/staff numbers or other services to cut to make ends meet. Or as the PRRB put it in their assessment of the evidence presented to them:
“The Home Office reported that an award above 2.8% would require challenging and difficult financial reprioritisation for both policing and the Government. It explained that forces had made workforce reductions and savings on non-pay budgets to afford three years of above affordability pay awards.”
With force finances stretched further, now’s a good time if you’re an aspiring police leader to think about how you might help make the most of available resources and provide efficient policing services.
What’s Happening in PSNI and Police Scotland?
In Police Scotland, the 2025/26 pay award has not yet been settled. Negotiations between the Staff Side and Official Side are complete however, with the offer out to ballot as the Scottish Police Federation report. Once agreed, this will take effect from and be back paid to April 2025, the annual date of pay awards in Scotland.
Scotland’s review is sorting two years in one, covering both the 2025/26 and 2026/27 pay years. This also covers both police officers and staff roles. The headline final offer is 4% for this year and 3.5% from April 2026. Beyond the headline rate are some interesting additions as reported by the SPF (see below list). Plus a guarantee that the offer will exceed inflation no matter what happens by 2026…
“This offer includes an inflation guarantee to ensure the pay increase each year is a minimum of one percentage point higher than the average CPI rate for the year.” – SPF Circular
And what of PSNI? Given they normally follow the pay of England and Wales exactly, the pay rise for PSNI officers will also be 4.2%. However, recent years have seen a delay in applying such increases, given the force has to determine where the money’s coming from when it’s not fully funded by central government.
Finishing on a notable rate rise further afield in policing, this occurred with a “once in a generation” increase in New South Wales police officers in Australia. Agreed in late 2024, this means officers were guaranteed a rise of between 22% – 39% over the next four years. Given the increasing challenges and stressors facing UK officers, this no doubt makes the exodus to Australia even more appealing.
I hope you’ve found the information in this blog helpful. What are your views on police pay? Watch this space for more useful policing, promotion and leadership content very soon…
Kind Regards, Steve
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